Sergey Yefimovich Turzhanskiy, Molotov Cocktail Attack, Oregon 2012

A Portland man has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for hurling a Molotov cocktail at a police car in 2012.

Sergey Yefimovich Turzhanskiy, 26, pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered destructive device. The device, a glass beer bottle with fuel and a cloth wick, was ignited and thrown at a parked Portland Police Bureau patrol car on November 5, 2012, at about 1:30 am.

The Molotov cocktail bounced off the hood of the car onto the ground and initially failed to break. Turzhanskiy picked up the device and threw it a second time at the vehicle, hitting the pavement and causing a fire next to the car. He then fled on a bicycle but was apprehended by police a few blocks away.

Turzhanskiy, a native of Ukraine, immigrated to the United States as a child and became a U.S. citizen. He grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and had lived in Portland for a short time when the crime occurred.

After serving his prison sentence, Turzhanskiy will be on supervised release for three years. As a special condition of supervised release, Judge Marco A. Hernandez ordered that Turzhanskiy shall have no communication or contact with anarchist groups or affiliates in the future.

Turzhanskiy has already paid $1,314.12 in restitution to the City of Portland for damage to the patrol car. The sentence was imposed by Judge Hernandez in U.S. District Court.

Amanda Marshall, United States Attorney, stated, “We are pleased with the sentence imposed by Judge Hernandez. Violent attacks such as this one on law enforcement deserve substantial punishment as a deterrent to similar conduct by others.”

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen F. Peifer, with investigative work performed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

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